To be near she who was for so long an idol, and I was for a shining time her adored pet.
We had such aspirational affection, and of course, immature to us both in hindsight, but no less lovely. We use words like "quite" and "lovely." She has taken to enunciating in tiny stacatto any two ts together in words, hard edged unlike our native lazy approach to consonants - we tend to bevel the edges at least.
After a protracted separation, her brief return is from a place that is a shining castle and museum of humanity and civilization. Her brief return is to a place that has county roads, no real center of population and a large number of heavy pickup trucks driven as a matter of course, down those county roads who are all shrugging their shoulders into ditches, from a place where three lanes become six, but there is not much horn honking.
Plus, as she says, "The noise just goes down into the water."
Everyone wants a piece of she and her daughter. Silent fights simmer, never quite breaking boiling, and legitimately inflated lower lips lumber along as giant balloons over upturned faces. All are quite miserable in their love and impatience. We starve for her and we are glad that she can do quite well without us, but what we don't understand is that she doesn't see that we like it when she is near. We do not understand how she could not understand what we understand and alternate between long stretched sinewy tension transmitted digitally, slowly, like getting messages back from distant planets, and loathing for our own expectations and needs.
Also, we are here, in rustic crude metal huts, among crumbling parking lots and empty storefronts, however tastefully the insides of our own homes are decorated. There is no charm here, this crude establishment which is slowly being painted over with more storefronts that will before too long also crumble to shit. Given the setting, is there any wonder there is something ambivalent in the feelings?
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
on science...
Related to Latour.
Something to remember about science: science is founded upon the appealingly rational idea of empirical knowledge - observation, measurement, recording, and repetition. However, these things are, like many other things, not as solid as one might wish them to be.
Our observation is limited to what we can or do observe. In the US, one is "officially" taught that there are five or so senses, with a sixth somewhere between the wished-for/believed-in and the observable, related to the perception of electromagnetics. A great deal of people have these in common, to varying degrees. We know that we do, because we have tools that tells us so, and measurements called decibels. However, due to our differences, we have "deficiencies" - which are only deficiencies in relation to the statistical mean value for a particular population for a particular measurement, in one or many senses.
Currently, a spacecraft launched 30 years ago has reached the borderspace of the heliosphere, but there is no monitoring or survey equipment on board beyond that which is capable of relaying the craft's position. This little time capsule, is empty, save for its capability, and our capability through it, to locate it in space, and in so doing, locate space. How many holes are there in this? How many different types of information could have been gathered; how many things of interest to our species?
How many types of information that we do not know about?
Measurement itself is another issue. Measures of sight or hearing are only of value in comparison to what is considered to be the normal ability. What is considered to be the "normal" ability? Is it the level of hearing or sight capacity that can be measured to be possessed by most people? Or should it be the level in the middle of the lower and higher end of ability? This is not an independent measure, without relationship to some other variable. The units of measure are all subjective, in some sense - horses are still, in the 21st century, measured in a unit called hands. It is currently accepted that a hand is equal to what is known as 4 inches, but what the hell is an inch. I've never seen one in the wild, and my hands are not 4 of them wide. Nor are my feet 12 of them long. They are based on decisions, made standard and viable only because of agreement upon their continued use. I myself will only hope to never see such a thing as a millimeter in nature, as it sounds quite poisonous.
Recording? I'd hope the average reader of the average text or work or document or piece or poetry or prose or drama or comedy or short story or magical spell would understand the faulty nature of transcribing what is not written into what is written. And certainly, the problem of the transcription of what is written to another written form is fraught with danger and possibility. The transcription of an experiment and its results is no exception.
The same holds to repetition. Science is predicated upon the experiment, and the re-creation of results to create a supported case for a relationship between things. This re-creation of results must be achieved by re-creations of that which elicited the results in the first place. Look, if perception, measurement, translating, encoding are tough, let's not even joke about re-creating the conditions for a particular event. Not friggin possible. To be able to recreate the conditions, we would first have had to be able to observe all the conditions which made the results of the initial experiment possible. Herein lies one limitation. Secondly, well, if the agreements for the measurements stay the same, this might be an easier part, what with the agreement and the effort towards the precision of instruments likely to be involved in such an important scientific endeavor as ours. Still, measurement is a funny notion with any amount of thought, and that's worth noting. Then, the first go-round must have been interpreted, encoded, and re-interpreted in such a way as to make these conditions of replication/repetition possible.
Science is a symbol of our understanding, but should not be understood as the boundary of understanding, nor should it be accepted as gospel or poetry without genuine acknowledgement of its limitations in the first place, which are basically our own.
Something to remember about science: science is founded upon the appealingly rational idea of empirical knowledge - observation, measurement, recording, and repetition. However, these things are, like many other things, not as solid as one might wish them to be.
Our observation is limited to what we can or do observe. In the US, one is "officially" taught that there are five or so senses, with a sixth somewhere between the wished-for/believed-in and the observable, related to the perception of electromagnetics. A great deal of people have these in common, to varying degrees. We know that we do, because we have tools that tells us so, and measurements called decibels. However, due to our differences, we have "deficiencies" - which are only deficiencies in relation to the statistical mean value for a particular population for a particular measurement, in one or many senses.
Currently, a spacecraft launched 30 years ago has reached the borderspace of the heliosphere, but there is no monitoring or survey equipment on board beyond that which is capable of relaying the craft's position. This little time capsule, is empty, save for its capability, and our capability through it, to locate it in space, and in so doing, locate space. How many holes are there in this? How many different types of information could have been gathered; how many things of interest to our species?
How many types of information that we do not know about?
Measurement itself is another issue. Measures of sight or hearing are only of value in comparison to what is considered to be the normal ability. What is considered to be the "normal" ability? Is it the level of hearing or sight capacity that can be measured to be possessed by most people? Or should it be the level in the middle of the lower and higher end of ability? This is not an independent measure, without relationship to some other variable. The units of measure are all subjective, in some sense - horses are still, in the 21st century, measured in a unit called hands. It is currently accepted that a hand is equal to what is known as 4 inches, but what the hell is an inch. I've never seen one in the wild, and my hands are not 4 of them wide. Nor are my feet 12 of them long. They are based on decisions, made standard and viable only because of agreement upon their continued use. I myself will only hope to never see such a thing as a millimeter in nature, as it sounds quite poisonous.
Recording? I'd hope the average reader of the average text or work or document or piece or poetry or prose or drama or comedy or short story or magical spell would understand the faulty nature of transcribing what is not written into what is written. And certainly, the problem of the transcription of what is written to another written form is fraught with danger and possibility. The transcription of an experiment and its results is no exception.
The same holds to repetition. Science is predicated upon the experiment, and the re-creation of results to create a supported case for a relationship between things. This re-creation of results must be achieved by re-creations of that which elicited the results in the first place. Look, if perception, measurement, translating, encoding are tough, let's not even joke about re-creating the conditions for a particular event. Not friggin possible. To be able to recreate the conditions, we would first have had to be able to observe all the conditions which made the results of the initial experiment possible. Herein lies one limitation. Secondly, well, if the agreements for the measurements stay the same, this might be an easier part, what with the agreement and the effort towards the precision of instruments likely to be involved in such an important scientific endeavor as ours. Still, measurement is a funny notion with any amount of thought, and that's worth noting. Then, the first go-round must have been interpreted, encoded, and re-interpreted in such a way as to make these conditions of replication/repetition possible.
Science is a symbol of our understanding, but should not be understood as the boundary of understanding, nor should it be accepted as gospel or poetry without genuine acknowledgement of its limitations in the first place, which are basically our own.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
seasonal reading
autumn approaches. the heat, by infinitestimal degrees is letting us slide from its greasy palm. Oktoberfest and other fall seasonally brewed beers are popping up, with redandgold leaves on their boxes, so we're clear that what's inside that box, those bottles, is meant to be tied to certain changes in atmosphere.
19 years ago someday recently, I didn't wave at my grandfather when we drove by. He was moving the yard, I think there was a tropical storm in the Gulf, and later that night he died.
fall is determined to be a descent, a transition, a doorway. Spring too, these threshold seasons, for some reason summer and winter are fixed. understood. The rest of the time is a cosmic road trip between solstices. Northrop Frye isolates the time in the cultural imagination as that of "sunset, autumn and death...of the dying god...and sacrifice and of the isolation of the hero." The "traitor and siren" rule this late afternoon to sunset time, which makes it sexy and treacherous, yet the heat makes it insufferable. At this time, the knees of the strongest wobble, the hearts of the bold murmur, and the sweat rises easily to the skin. It will be glorified; however, just a little later in the day. And so we've got faded golden Ulysses, our idle king sighing at comfortable hearthside and deciding the afternoon was so glorious; remember when they reveled in the heat and labor? Fuck it he says, let's get the band back together.
However, of course the paraphrase lacks much that the real thing features. In honor of the afternoon, a little Tennyson:
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
-- Ulysses
And so tarry a moment on the beers with the leaves on the labels. Revel in the heat. We'll be hearthside soon enough.
19 years ago someday recently, I didn't wave at my grandfather when we drove by. He was moving the yard, I think there was a tropical storm in the Gulf, and later that night he died.
fall is determined to be a descent, a transition, a doorway. Spring too, these threshold seasons, for some reason summer and winter are fixed. understood. The rest of the time is a cosmic road trip between solstices. Northrop Frye isolates the time in the cultural imagination as that of "sunset, autumn and death...of the dying god...and sacrifice and of the isolation of the hero." The "traitor and siren" rule this late afternoon to sunset time, which makes it sexy and treacherous, yet the heat makes it insufferable. At this time, the knees of the strongest wobble, the hearts of the bold murmur, and the sweat rises easily to the skin. It will be glorified; however, just a little later in the day. And so we've got faded golden Ulysses, our idle king sighing at comfortable hearthside and deciding the afternoon was so glorious; remember when they reveled in the heat and labor? Fuck it he says, let's get the band back together.
However, of course the paraphrase lacks much that the real thing features. In honor of the afternoon, a little Tennyson:
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
-- Ulysses
And so tarry a moment on the beers with the leaves on the labels. Revel in the heat. We'll be hearthside soon enough.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
things that every child should know, #1
it takes judgment to swear well, and that is the main objection anyone has to children and insipid people swearing.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The Handsome Reader - The Hunger Games
It is with no small measure of irony that I cop to devouring The Hunger Games today. I had been planning to do just a little bit more
with my summer and learned today that I will not be quite as busy as I had heretofore planned. Thus, summer reading camp. I've knocked
off quite a sequence a books in the few weeks past, trying to get my reading brain back in shape for school. (I think I am a funny and charismatic
instructor. I am dull shit as a student, but at least I am old enough to know that my brain weren't where it should be for upper-level coursework.)
Few books catch me enough to write about, or maybe I'm just lazy. Collins' The Hunger Games has been on my read list for quite some time. I'm not necessarily one of the carefree pushers of YA lit (avoiding an MLS partly to avoid that ghetto), but I genuinely continue to enjoy books written for and marketed to (Bill Hicks says "kill yourself") that audience. L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series, several Ursula K. LeGuin and the excellent Roald Dahl novels populate my bookshelves with scars of honor and love down their spines. I don't know quite that THG will be joining them.
I may instead be reserving a corner of my darker bookshelf for THG. This is the section where lurk Philip K. Dick's androids dreaming(or not) of pneumatic, positronic sweaters on the foot, and where Atwood's seamy survivalists squat in squalor. This is at least what I was thinking as I entered the first chapter.
The first page (SPOILER ALERT!) reveals a disembodied speaker in the first person, which in a novel ostensibly about survival, could be telling. A saintly, cherubic little sister, a bashed-up cat who survived a drowning attempt in kittenhood at the hands of the as-yet-identified main character and a difficult maternal relationship.
This voice resolves itself into a grim, yet plucky heroine, a capitalistic Dickensean femme urchin who is the man of the family. At one point, Katniss is coaxed into particular behaviors in attempt to make the public, the revolted and compelled viewers of the book's namesake Games, like her. Look, after the first page, after the kitten thing, there's really not much I don't like about this character. She's a, ahem, fucking hardass. Collins has placed these Games in a brutal future Panem, which the reader assumes to be North America. Katniss is from the poorest of the poor districts, a literal coal miner's daughter (albeit a coal miner who was blown to smithereens in an industrial accident five years before) who lives by her survivalist and entreprenurial impulses. She has spent enough time in the forbidden forest, hunting, to have learned to become one of the animals. Katniss is both a symbol of a human and animal connection, but also of a teenage girl in the wilderness of school hallways - predators, schemes, arbitrary rules and no real self-control. As such, she's brilliant. Maybe I'm sheltered, and being reductive in believing that the gender of a protagonist has anything to do with anything, but I like the fact that Katniss is a sharp, hard girl who has a silly moment here and there. I heard a piece on NPR over the winter, and heard about another girl from coal country, quite a bit like Katniss. I don't remember this girl's name, but she is simultaneously head cheerleader and an avid deer hunter. Katniss is hardly head cheerleader, but once she is inserted into the pressure cooker of the media frenzy surrounding the Games, she navigates the system and responds with strength to many of the situations designed to manipulate her into making mistakes. She's honorable, offering herself for sacrifice in place of cherubic, goat-milking sister Prim, in a way that few female characters are allowed to be. I am put particularly in mind of L'Engle's Meg Murry, on a quest in A Wind in the Door to save her little brother, and in Wrinkle in Time her efforts to save both her father and brother.
L'Engle's Meg Murry, however, didn't dodge fireballs, and there were no impalings of pixie-ish 12 year olds in the Time quartet. That's where I find that the book takes a strange turn, combining gore, sci fi (tracking wasps that hold grudges and vile psychotropic fatal poison? Yeaaaaah.), amped-up Hollywood special effects (makes me certain I will never see this as a movie), post-climate change/political apocalypse and commentary on reality entertainment media. Strange, but I like it. Theme-wise, it reminds me of a couple of Stephen King's early novellas, sold as the Bachman books when I was a teenager, particulary "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man." His blurb on the back of the book, then, seemed to be in place. Thematically, I'm wondering how much anime or manga Collins has read. Gore is a bit of a theme in my entertainment media at the moment, and this one didn't skimp on it either, though it was typically more of the exploding green wasp pus gore, instead of being like literal, visceral gore - and I mean the kind that involves actual viscera. There is a sword wound (YES a SWORD wound - no guns, I don't think I read any, anyway) and more pus gore, and a protracted way fucked-up death scene at the end, but it's mostly in the narrator's mind instead of in her vision, which is kind of worse and a very sweet classic way of pushing the audience's buttons (it's the difference between old movies that are scary and never show the "monster" vs new special effects CGI candyshop things that are dull as shit because the viewer can see the Evil One's wide pores. The theme of setting the teenagers to kill each other isn't quite new (see also Battle Royale), but these teens also have a post-reality-television attitude towards the game of survival, and the adult public uses it as a politcal, sporting, gambling and clan-pride type event.
Ahm, because yes, I will be passing the book on - I'm not going to make space on my shelf for this one. I will burn through the entire series in no short order, and will hopefully be as grabbed by those as I was by this initial installment. That's actually part of the issue - the serious action wraps up at a certain point and there is a strange dragging ending to the book. I think part of this may replicate what Katniss experiences, the aftereffects of the stress of survival compounded with the much more subtle and sinister games being played after the gladitorial event. At a certain point, however, it becommes completely obvious that THG is the first installment. I think that there are several more elegant ways to deal with the segue into the next piece, but I didn't really need the heroine to be back at her District in order to begin the next installment. I don't know, though, and I guess reading it will tell me more. But there's more on why I'd not put it on my heart-pounding read shelf.
I am guilty of judging books by their covers and the blurbs thereupon. I've mentioned already King's blurb, and now I have to talk shit about Stephenie Meyer's blurb. (Uum, for someone who's not ever seen a rated R movie, this must not have been an easy read, or, as I suspect, Meyer has no imagination, so the twelve year old on the stake didn't present as a revolting picture in her mind. This must be how one writes a birth scene involving gnawing. But this does remind me, I do need to read Lord of the Flies this summer. Unbelieveable that a Lit major and book dork avoided that one. How?) Okay. There's purpose and there's audience, and I understand writing to appeal to one's audience. It's totally necessary and a central concern to a writer embarking on a writerly exercise. For example, I'm writing for an audience of about 5 (Hi there! Love you!) and myself, and it's on the internet, so I can say "fuck" and things like that. Meyer and Collins both write for the YA market, and muchly for girls, although I've noticed many young male readers engaged in both series, and almost tackled a guy teen at the library when he got the branch's copy of THG right before me the last time I had time enough to read it. I would have looked like a child abuser and book pervert. Weirdo. The fact that the book is marketed to teens, however, does not give the writers excuses to write like teens. Like sentence fragments. Just about everywhere.
I remember writing. Just like that. I can't do it anymore, at least not in prose, or at least I make an effort not to, but that's also partially because I am becoming more reflexively aware of my clauses. Not that they sometimes don't get the better of me. The sentence fragment thing alone gives rise to my objections to Meyer's works (or the selections there of that I've read) and the Collins novel. Why the fragments? Why the breathless lack of subjects or verbs, and why the attachment to prepositional phrases and dependent clauses flying solo?
This is why, when people give me the lame, well, at least the kids are reading bullshit, I call bullshit. If the kids are reading, let them read something with some grammatical style. I mean this trend does have a grammatical style, but it's a bullshitty grammatical style and the readers pick up on it. I know Atwood's not perfect, and she way influenced my short lines in poetry - I came to Atwood's fiction through her poetry (thanks again for long ago gifts, Nick), but she's got some pretty serious control over her clauses. This is a crucial skill that Meyer and Collins could work on. (Perhaps they've never read any R-rated poetry?)
Story-wise, it's a beast. I'm going to enjoy thinking over levels of potential symbolism that I read in the book -I especially like the idea about Katniss navigating the Games and games culture as a stand-in for a young woman's progression to adulthood in a culture of extreme pressure. Again, I'm going to read the sequels, and probably wish for different transitions/endings, but that's just armchair novel-writing. But the fragments. I will not forgive.
with my summer and learned today that I will not be quite as busy as I had heretofore planned. Thus, summer reading camp. I've knocked
off quite a sequence a books in the few weeks past, trying to get my reading brain back in shape for school. (I think I am a funny and charismatic
instructor. I am dull shit as a student, but at least I am old enough to know that my brain weren't where it should be for upper-level coursework.)
Few books catch me enough to write about, or maybe I'm just lazy. Collins' The Hunger Games has been on my read list for quite some time. I'm not necessarily one of the carefree pushers of YA lit (avoiding an MLS partly to avoid that ghetto), but I genuinely continue to enjoy books written for and marketed to (Bill Hicks says "kill yourself") that audience. L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series, several Ursula K. LeGuin and the excellent Roald Dahl novels populate my bookshelves with scars of honor and love down their spines. I don't know quite that THG will be joining them.
I may instead be reserving a corner of my darker bookshelf for THG. This is the section where lurk Philip K. Dick's androids dreaming(or not) of pneumatic, positronic sweaters on the foot, and where Atwood's seamy survivalists squat in squalor. This is at least what I was thinking as I entered the first chapter.
The first page (SPOILER ALERT!) reveals a disembodied speaker in the first person, which in a novel ostensibly about survival, could be telling. A saintly, cherubic little sister, a bashed-up cat who survived a drowning attempt in kittenhood at the hands of the as-yet-identified main character and a difficult maternal relationship.
This voice resolves itself into a grim, yet plucky heroine, a capitalistic Dickensean femme urchin who is the man of the family. At one point, Katniss is coaxed into particular behaviors in attempt to make the public, the revolted and compelled viewers of the book's namesake Games, like her. Look, after the first page, after the kitten thing, there's really not much I don't like about this character. She's a, ahem, fucking hardass. Collins has placed these Games in a brutal future Panem, which the reader assumes to be North America. Katniss is from the poorest of the poor districts, a literal coal miner's daughter (albeit a coal miner who was blown to smithereens in an industrial accident five years before) who lives by her survivalist and entreprenurial impulses. She has spent enough time in the forbidden forest, hunting, to have learned to become one of the animals. Katniss is both a symbol of a human and animal connection, but also of a teenage girl in the wilderness of school hallways - predators, schemes, arbitrary rules and no real self-control. As such, she's brilliant. Maybe I'm sheltered, and being reductive in believing that the gender of a protagonist has anything to do with anything, but I like the fact that Katniss is a sharp, hard girl who has a silly moment here and there. I heard a piece on NPR over the winter, and heard about another girl from coal country, quite a bit like Katniss. I don't remember this girl's name, but she is simultaneously head cheerleader and an avid deer hunter. Katniss is hardly head cheerleader, but once she is inserted into the pressure cooker of the media frenzy surrounding the Games, she navigates the system and responds with strength to many of the situations designed to manipulate her into making mistakes. She's honorable, offering herself for sacrifice in place of cherubic, goat-milking sister Prim, in a way that few female characters are allowed to be. I am put particularly in mind of L'Engle's Meg Murry, on a quest in A Wind in the Door to save her little brother, and in Wrinkle in Time her efforts to save both her father and brother.
L'Engle's Meg Murry, however, didn't dodge fireballs, and there were no impalings of pixie-ish 12 year olds in the Time quartet. That's where I find that the book takes a strange turn, combining gore, sci fi (tracking wasps that hold grudges and vile psychotropic fatal poison? Yeaaaaah.), amped-up Hollywood special effects (makes me certain I will never see this as a movie), post-climate change/political apocalypse and commentary on reality entertainment media. Strange, but I like it. Theme-wise, it reminds me of a couple of Stephen King's early novellas, sold as the Bachman books when I was a teenager, particulary "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man." His blurb on the back of the book, then, seemed to be in place. Thematically, I'm wondering how much anime or manga Collins has read. Gore is a bit of a theme in my entertainment media at the moment, and this one didn't skimp on it either, though it was typically more of the exploding green wasp pus gore, instead of being like literal, visceral gore - and I mean the kind that involves actual viscera. There is a sword wound (YES a SWORD wound - no guns, I don't think I read any, anyway) and more pus gore, and a protracted way fucked-up death scene at the end, but it's mostly in the narrator's mind instead of in her vision, which is kind of worse and a very sweet classic way of pushing the audience's buttons (it's the difference between old movies that are scary and never show the "monster" vs new special effects CGI candyshop things that are dull as shit because the viewer can see the Evil One's wide pores. The theme of setting the teenagers to kill each other isn't quite new (see also Battle Royale), but these teens also have a post-reality-television attitude towards the game of survival, and the adult public uses it as a politcal, sporting, gambling and clan-pride type event.
Ahm, because yes, I will be passing the book on - I'm not going to make space on my shelf for this one. I will burn through the entire series in no short order, and will hopefully be as grabbed by those as I was by this initial installment. That's actually part of the issue - the serious action wraps up at a certain point and there is a strange dragging ending to the book. I think part of this may replicate what Katniss experiences, the aftereffects of the stress of survival compounded with the much more subtle and sinister games being played after the gladitorial event. At a certain point, however, it becommes completely obvious that THG is the first installment. I think that there are several more elegant ways to deal with the segue into the next piece, but I didn't really need the heroine to be back at her District in order to begin the next installment. I don't know, though, and I guess reading it will tell me more. But there's more on why I'd not put it on my heart-pounding read shelf.
I am guilty of judging books by their covers and the blurbs thereupon. I've mentioned already King's blurb, and now I have to talk shit about Stephenie Meyer's blurb. (Uum, for someone who's not ever seen a rated R movie, this must not have been an easy read, or, as I suspect, Meyer has no imagination, so the twelve year old on the stake didn't present as a revolting picture in her mind. This must be how one writes a birth scene involving gnawing. But this does remind me, I do need to read Lord of the Flies this summer. Unbelieveable that a Lit major and book dork avoided that one. How?) Okay. There's purpose and there's audience, and I understand writing to appeal to one's audience. It's totally necessary and a central concern to a writer embarking on a writerly exercise. For example, I'm writing for an audience of about 5 (Hi there! Love you!) and myself, and it's on the internet, so I can say "fuck" and things like that. Meyer and Collins both write for the YA market, and muchly for girls, although I've noticed many young male readers engaged in both series, and almost tackled a guy teen at the library when he got the branch's copy of THG right before me the last time I had time enough to read it. I would have looked like a child abuser and book pervert. Weirdo. The fact that the book is marketed to teens, however, does not give the writers excuses to write like teens. Like sentence fragments. Just about everywhere.
I remember writing. Just like that. I can't do it anymore, at least not in prose, or at least I make an effort not to, but that's also partially because I am becoming more reflexively aware of my clauses. Not that they sometimes don't get the better of me. The sentence fragment thing alone gives rise to my objections to Meyer's works (or the selections there of that I've read) and the Collins novel. Why the fragments? Why the breathless lack of subjects or verbs, and why the attachment to prepositional phrases and dependent clauses flying solo?
This is why, when people give me the lame, well, at least the kids are reading bullshit, I call bullshit. If the kids are reading, let them read something with some grammatical style. I mean this trend does have a grammatical style, but it's a bullshitty grammatical style and the readers pick up on it. I know Atwood's not perfect, and she way influenced my short lines in poetry - I came to Atwood's fiction through her poetry (thanks again for long ago gifts, Nick), but she's got some pretty serious control over her clauses. This is a crucial skill that Meyer and Collins could work on. (Perhaps they've never read any R-rated poetry?)
Story-wise, it's a beast. I'm going to enjoy thinking over levels of potential symbolism that I read in the book -I especially like the idea about Katniss navigating the Games and games culture as a stand-in for a young woman's progression to adulthood in a culture of extreme pressure. Again, I'm going to read the sequels, and probably wish for different transitions/endings, but that's just armchair novel-writing. But the fragments. I will not forgive.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
a leisurely tour
(From March of this year - it's taken me this long to type it...)
much of what I write is fiction, since much of what I write is plans and I pretty much never do what I write down that I should.
But here's a piece of documentary prose (oxymoron? paradox? redundancy?). Here is descriptive narrative - an observation of the state of affairs of the garden, to wit, the notations of a backporch farmer who doesn't know much yet. I've got some ideas, and I don't know how they'll pan out.
Geraniums flank the door, an oderiferous (the cashier at the nursery pronounced it "pungent") citronella geranium on the left. Intricate lacy leaves, no signs of bloom yet save a picture on the tag jammed into the front of the pot. The flowers pictured look more like plumerias than geraniums, but what the hell. The foliage smells nice.
In more robust, fat petaled typical geranium style, the Americana Violet '11 is colored like an acid trip. Vibrant migraine trigger pink, it's so bright that it's taken me a month to realize that part of the retina-searing brightness comes from the cymbal crash contrast of atomic orange at the center of each bloom. It cheerfully weathers whatever it is that's chomping away at the fat Buddha palm leaves. I should do something about that. (Post script: I never did. The chompers became so full of no-thing that they disappeared with all the drama of one hand clapping.)
Hanging over all is usually a variegated pink and red ivy geranium, raining scarlet petals over all, like cherry blossoms in Japanese art. These things go freaking everywhere and it's so blatant where they fall because they are so bright. The ivy geranium is on the ground now, due to weather predicted last night, and down also came the mostly experimental hanging strawberry. (Post script: May and I'm ready to compost the thing. Put it out of its misery - it's obviously a daylong strawberry not an everbearing and we can get something up there to either make food or attract pollinators. The other farmer does not agree with me and for the moment he is winning.)
Two mints, actively and promiscuously trading various nuances of flavor, behind the guilt Gerber from Gran (she beheaded the two I had on a plant that my cats have since treated as a salad bar) in a goofy green pot. It is entirely goofy, big floppy leaves and guileless bumpkin face flowers. The gerbers will really be impressed when the sunflower seeds get going in the protein garden.
The protein garden is yet to come, so I will here steer discussion away from lofty goals and return to the now-ness of what-is. What-is is stevia, a sweet leafed herb, potted on the right of the back door. I am thinking of stevia and chocolate mint (one of the promiscuous ones) herbal infusion tea. (Post script: I have harvested and dried some leaves from both the stevia and chocolate mint plants this week. I crushed some up with ice, turbinado sugar, my favorite bourbon and a few drops of water last night. Excellent.)
There's a small pot of rosemary, one sprig, and it refuses to grow, but it hasn't given up. I feel for that rosemary. Gran just kind of pulled it out of the crack in her sidewalk, late last summer and it lived in a glass of water on my counter for about a week because, I'm sorry I was busy okay? The rosemary persists. It abides. Whatever. (The other farmer insists that it's upside down. I once again will not say outright that he's correct, but it's entirely possible. Roots went in the dirt, I say.)
Garlic chives about as motivated as the rosemary. I've never had luck with chives or green onion from seed but I don't know. We got it as a plant and I am not the one who potted it. We'll see. (Post script: We're still wait-and-see with this one. Still.)
Oregano in another pot. Also a little plant, not doing much. (PS: Still.) An aloe plant, growing slowly, recovering from the loss of a spike before we got it. There is a rubber shark in the aloe pot, just so everyone is properly warned that it is a tough plant.
Ichiban eggplant (a gift for the other farmer) is in a taller pot and it is starting to bloom - light purple flowers, six petals, yellow pistils(? stamens?) something inside; it reminds me of a violet or a prairie flower, yet it nestles in with these bulbous fat leaves naturally. (PS: There are literally a million eggplants on the plant right now. I need to harvest some so the plant will keep producing, but they're all fat and egg-shaped, not long like the tag and the rest of the world and the internet indicate Ichiban eggplant should be.)
The last (at that time) pot is a strange case. It's old, crappy dirt, and I think I tried to use it for nasturtiums last summer/fall. No va, as they say, nada. But I think the other farmer put some kind of citrus seed - anything from a grapefruit to a lime - in the dirt. I ignored it; the pot sat out all winter while other things went into the garage (the rosemary is the only thing that made it out of the garage alive). So. There's a seedling with three layers of glossy green citrus looking leaves. (PS: Still growing, still no clue.)
(Post Script to entire previous: This piece neglects to mention the proliferation of tomatoes slowly taking over the place, the raised bed, my birthday lemon, and various other secrets. These may or may not be addressed in due time.)
much of what I write is fiction, since much of what I write is plans and I pretty much never do what I write down that I should.
But here's a piece of documentary prose (oxymoron? paradox? redundancy?). Here is descriptive narrative - an observation of the state of affairs of the garden, to wit, the notations of a backporch farmer who doesn't know much yet. I've got some ideas, and I don't know how they'll pan out.
Geraniums flank the door, an oderiferous (the cashier at the nursery pronounced it "pungent") citronella geranium on the left. Intricate lacy leaves, no signs of bloom yet save a picture on the tag jammed into the front of the pot. The flowers pictured look more like plumerias than geraniums, but what the hell. The foliage smells nice.
In more robust, fat petaled typical geranium style, the Americana Violet '11 is colored like an acid trip. Vibrant migraine trigger pink, it's so bright that it's taken me a month to realize that part of the retina-searing brightness comes from the cymbal crash contrast of atomic orange at the center of each bloom. It cheerfully weathers whatever it is that's chomping away at the fat Buddha palm leaves. I should do something about that. (Post script: I never did. The chompers became so full of no-thing that they disappeared with all the drama of one hand clapping.)
Hanging over all is usually a variegated pink and red ivy geranium, raining scarlet petals over all, like cherry blossoms in Japanese art. These things go freaking everywhere and it's so blatant where they fall because they are so bright. The ivy geranium is on the ground now, due to weather predicted last night, and down also came the mostly experimental hanging strawberry. (Post script: May and I'm ready to compost the thing. Put it out of its misery - it's obviously a daylong strawberry not an everbearing and we can get something up there to either make food or attract pollinators. The other farmer does not agree with me and for the moment he is winning.)
Two mints, actively and promiscuously trading various nuances of flavor, behind the guilt Gerber from Gran (she beheaded the two I had on a plant that my cats have since treated as a salad bar) in a goofy green pot. It is entirely goofy, big floppy leaves and guileless bumpkin face flowers. The gerbers will really be impressed when the sunflower seeds get going in the protein garden.
The protein garden is yet to come, so I will here steer discussion away from lofty goals and return to the now-ness of what-is. What-is is stevia, a sweet leafed herb, potted on the right of the back door. I am thinking of stevia and chocolate mint (one of the promiscuous ones) herbal infusion tea. (Post script: I have harvested and dried some leaves from both the stevia and chocolate mint plants this week. I crushed some up with ice, turbinado sugar, my favorite bourbon and a few drops of water last night. Excellent.)
There's a small pot of rosemary, one sprig, and it refuses to grow, but it hasn't given up. I feel for that rosemary. Gran just kind of pulled it out of the crack in her sidewalk, late last summer and it lived in a glass of water on my counter for about a week because, I'm sorry I was busy okay? The rosemary persists. It abides. Whatever. (The other farmer insists that it's upside down. I once again will not say outright that he's correct, but it's entirely possible. Roots went in the dirt, I say.)
Garlic chives about as motivated as the rosemary. I've never had luck with chives or green onion from seed but I don't know. We got it as a plant and I am not the one who potted it. We'll see. (Post script: We're still wait-and-see with this one. Still.)
Oregano in another pot. Also a little plant, not doing much. (PS: Still.) An aloe plant, growing slowly, recovering from the loss of a spike before we got it. There is a rubber shark in the aloe pot, just so everyone is properly warned that it is a tough plant.
Ichiban eggplant (a gift for the other farmer) is in a taller pot and it is starting to bloom - light purple flowers, six petals, yellow pistils(? stamens?) something inside; it reminds me of a violet or a prairie flower, yet it nestles in with these bulbous fat leaves naturally. (PS: There are literally a million eggplants on the plant right now. I need to harvest some so the plant will keep producing, but they're all fat and egg-shaped, not long like the tag and the rest of the world and the internet indicate Ichiban eggplant should be.)
The last (at that time) pot is a strange case. It's old, crappy dirt, and I think I tried to use it for nasturtiums last summer/fall. No va, as they say, nada. But I think the other farmer put some kind of citrus seed - anything from a grapefruit to a lime - in the dirt. I ignored it; the pot sat out all winter while other things went into the garage (the rosemary is the only thing that made it out of the garage alive). So. There's a seedling with three layers of glossy green citrus looking leaves. (PS: Still growing, still no clue.)
(Post Script to entire previous: This piece neglects to mention the proliferation of tomatoes slowly taking over the place, the raised bed, my birthday lemon, and various other secrets. These may or may not be addressed in due time.)
Monday, May 2, 2011
holding on
This last week of the semester is a temporal Ground Zero - it's all recovery, disaster relief and triage, just to get everyone to hold on until next week.
The plants are growing, I've got a sock and a half on the needles, as well as seventy-five percent of a baby blanket and the beginnings of a shawl for a charity auction (in nineteen days, there's another emergency response situation in the brewing). Spinning projects abound, the garden is getting much needier, and there is naught but a busy summer (grad school!) ahead of me.
The plants are growing, I've got a sock and a half on the needles, as well as seventy-five percent of a baby blanket and the beginnings of a shawl for a charity auction (in nineteen days, there's another emergency response situation in the brewing). Spinning projects abound, the garden is getting much needier, and there is naught but a busy summer (grad school!) ahead of me.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
if i had one wish right now...
if I had all of the dragonballs, and summoned the eternal dragon, I, like Oolong, would wish for the world's most comfortable underpants.
Unless I wished for pretty much unlimited fiber stash, and the time to mess with it, but I think that's two wishes,
or three,
cumulatively.
Unless I wished for pretty much unlimited fiber stash, and the time to mess with it, but I think that's two wishes,
or three,
cumulatively.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
the ones who sit up into the night
and i noticed that it was a trend, that we were so successful and one of the things that we did well was to use everyone's energy in a logical and positive way. and since those two ideas might be too abstract, i will explain - we took advantage of the energy of most of the people, really, for the benefit of pretty much everyone, and the energy we took was enough for everyone to have some, and we usually had a spot for everyone.
for example, the old folks.
they led the charge of those who sit up into the night. in a dim place, with a low bulb and shadows, or a dimmed camp fire or cook fire, or some permutation thereof. hunched, sitting proudly, placidly, leaned back, cocked over tilting. dim eyed or glittering, eyes fixed at nothing or something quite in particular. hot beverages and at least rudimentary food stuff near at hand, at any hour really.
many of them had shuffled off sleep, and sat up into the night in lit places, sometimes all alone, but with a spot next to them for anyone to slide into: book into a shelf. and there was talking or not, but easy companionship for another of the owls who sits up at night.
for example, the old folks.
they led the charge of those who sit up into the night. in a dim place, with a low bulb and shadows, or a dimmed camp fire or cook fire, or some permutation thereof. hunched, sitting proudly, placidly, leaned back, cocked over tilting. dim eyed or glittering, eyes fixed at nothing or something quite in particular. hot beverages and at least rudimentary food stuff near at hand, at any hour really.
many of them had shuffled off sleep, and sat up into the night in lit places, sometimes all alone, but with a spot next to them for anyone to slide into: book into a shelf. and there was talking or not, but easy companionship for another of the owls who sits up at night.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
what a diz do?
spinning is funny. but not like the octopus and the bagpipes funny, but more like a compulsion bordering on an obsession, and me with the tendency towards anxiety anyway, like a loose particle bouncing around just waiting to get bonded with something (like always).
it also has me doing google searches in pursuit of understanding the aforementioned tool's use and necessity. i've read tell of people making a diz out of a soup lid, so it seems to be some sort of plate? or template? with holes in it?
i plied, literally, a million miles of shetland from my chairback lazy kate system (i badly need to upgrade to a shoebox/knitting needle system) with an actual boat anchor. i swear that spindle weighs exactly 87 pounds. yes my arm is sore.
yes, i am also going to *another* fiber shop tomorrow. this brings me to something that i've always wanted to do - i've always wanted to list all of the fiber shops that i could remember being - disregarding chain/"craft" stores. i can already think of one that i absolutely can't remember the name of and i don't know if google will help me find the names of all of them.
1. Nancy's Knits - Braeswood, in Houston. She stayed open late so Julia and I could poke around; I bought my first Kureyon. It reminds me of a trip away from reality as profound as the Spice Shop in *The Mistress of Spices* (author - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - the film is poo compared to the movie, not to discount the efforts of those involved in the production thereof - I digress. CBD is a professor at U of H, Nancy's in Houston - see, it's all related!) It's in an older strip center, on the bayou. No sign. Dark towers of bagged-up yarn loom in the upper reaches of the dim commercial ceiling. If one backs into a wire shelf, it will move, and there will be a Newtonian moment with a skein (or bag) of yarn from above. It may well be exactly the right yarn for the moment, or it could be totally impractical.
I went to Nancy's at odd-regular intervals and she spotted me a dollar on some yarn (probably Kureyon) when I came in after kung fu one day (still in uniform and a bit sweaty - many pearl clutching types would be horrified, Nancy just said hi). I didn't pay her back for a year, but I sure did pay her back.
2. before Nancy's, there was a shop right on the edge of Lewisville and Corinth, on my way home from work. There was construction in the area, and it wasn't easy to get to. I bought two yarns there, but I can only remember one of them - a lime green tweed, real wool with a dull finish. It was rougher than anything else I'd ever felt - being accustomed to the insipid slipperiness of certain big name craft store synthetic yarns of the soft or "so smooth" variety as I was, I fell kind of in love. I got something else too, but can not for the life of me remember what. It was hand dyed...
3. Eventually Julia took me to Yarns 2 Ewe. I have had pleasant moments there, bought plenty of pretty yarns there. The lace shelf next to the ball winding area always lures me in for closer conversation. I've only used one yarn that I've gotten off the lace shelves.
4. Then I moved to southern California. I spent most of my time in Carlsbad and Encinitas, the latter of which hosts two good yarn shops (one I adore with all my heart and wish I'd been a knitter when I lived there, but got amazing mileage from - snicker - literally) and the best bead/crystal shop EVER. EVER. Okay, so first, was Black Sheep. I think I would really like that shop now, but at the time, I was a little meh. There were lots of fancies type yarn, and I had fun with a couple of silly things that I got there, but I don't really remember what they were. Unsettling yarn displays involving wicker baskets (agh, the snagging!) But a hearty display of Manos worsted kept me in thrall. There were many yarns here that I considered buying. Nice ladies.
--Here I must end my post. I am ever so tantalizingly close to finding out what it is that the diz does, after which I will be off to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, because of the wonderful things he does. Oh my. But I'll pick up with Common Threads tomorrow. Because actually, Common Threads came first, and always will, in my heart.
it also has me doing google searches in pursuit of understanding the aforementioned tool's use and necessity. i've read tell of people making a diz out of a soup lid, so it seems to be some sort of plate? or template? with holes in it?
i plied, literally, a million miles of shetland from my chairback lazy kate system (i badly need to upgrade to a shoebox/knitting needle system) with an actual boat anchor. i swear that spindle weighs exactly 87 pounds. yes my arm is sore.
yes, i am also going to *another* fiber shop tomorrow. this brings me to something that i've always wanted to do - i've always wanted to list all of the fiber shops that i could remember being - disregarding chain/"craft" stores. i can already think of one that i absolutely can't remember the name of and i don't know if google will help me find the names of all of them.
1. Nancy's Knits - Braeswood, in Houston. She stayed open late so Julia and I could poke around; I bought my first Kureyon. It reminds me of a trip away from reality as profound as the Spice Shop in *The Mistress of Spices* (author - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - the film is poo compared to the movie, not to discount the efforts of those involved in the production thereof - I digress. CBD is a professor at U of H, Nancy's in Houston - see, it's all related!) It's in an older strip center, on the bayou. No sign. Dark towers of bagged-up yarn loom in the upper reaches of the dim commercial ceiling. If one backs into a wire shelf, it will move, and there will be a Newtonian moment with a skein (or bag) of yarn from above. It may well be exactly the right yarn for the moment, or it could be totally impractical.
I went to Nancy's at odd-regular intervals and she spotted me a dollar on some yarn (probably Kureyon) when I came in after kung fu one day (still in uniform and a bit sweaty - many pearl clutching types would be horrified, Nancy just said hi). I didn't pay her back for a year, but I sure did pay her back.
2. before Nancy's, there was a shop right on the edge of Lewisville and Corinth, on my way home from work. There was construction in the area, and it wasn't easy to get to. I bought two yarns there, but I can only remember one of them - a lime green tweed, real wool with a dull finish. It was rougher than anything else I'd ever felt - being accustomed to the insipid slipperiness of certain big name craft store synthetic yarns of the soft or "so smooth" variety as I was, I fell kind of in love. I got something else too, but can not for the life of me remember what. It was hand dyed...
3. Eventually Julia took me to Yarns 2 Ewe. I have had pleasant moments there, bought plenty of pretty yarns there. The lace shelf next to the ball winding area always lures me in for closer conversation. I've only used one yarn that I've gotten off the lace shelves.
4. Then I moved to southern California. I spent most of my time in Carlsbad and Encinitas, the latter of which hosts two good yarn shops (one I adore with all my heart and wish I'd been a knitter when I lived there, but got amazing mileage from - snicker - literally) and the best bead/crystal shop EVER. EVER. Okay, so first, was Black Sheep. I think I would really like that shop now, but at the time, I was a little meh. There were lots of fancies type yarn, and I had fun with a couple of silly things that I got there, but I don't really remember what they were. Unsettling yarn displays involving wicker baskets (agh, the snagging!) But a hearty display of Manos worsted kept me in thrall. There were many yarns here that I considered buying. Nice ladies.
--Here I must end my post. I am ever so tantalizingly close to finding out what it is that the diz does, after which I will be off to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, because of the wonderful things he does. Oh my. But I'll pick up with Common Threads tomorrow. Because actually, Common Threads came first, and always will, in my heart.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
spin and suds
and i'm not talking about laundry. i am howver, typing one-handed (maddening) with some twisted up shetland in my right hand, attached to my sweet new little golding spindle.
she's already got a name, and as the goldings call her, she is a real little sweetheart. after swanging around on my big old ursula (my ashford student spindle, at a fighting weight of over 2 and a half ounces, my little faye valentine is as a bumblebee next to a b-52. faye is quick and i sure need to speed up my draw/draft. i have found that yesterday and today, i was able to spin, with diligent attention, some fairly even singles on some shetland i'd brought back from a visit to alaska. playing with a little pouf of it a couple of weeks ago compelled me to order some more shetland.
i combed through etsy listings, as i'm currently lacking a local source (that i know) of shetland. i've gotten merino and BFL from LYS but it seems that finding more variety is going to necessitate trips more northerly in the state or ordering online.
i chose the sheep's company for some beautiful, naturally colored shetland wool - which i say, scared of using the terminology, but i think it might be top? roving? the fibers seem to be going more-or-less the same way, but it doesn't seem nearly as processed as the big commercial crazy dyed merino i've spun and most spinners have at least met. it's not even as "commercial" feeling as the pagewood farms BFL i've spun (8 oz in two different colors). i would expect that the texture difference between the different types of wool would probably also contribute to some of the feeling (although that merino felt like fiber that had been processed within an inch of its life - i know this feeling from my own hair after it has been abused). it's a little oily, but not really greasy and it has a faint oily/sheepy smell.
i am trying to be aware and present and to pay attention while i am spinning, slowing myself to avoid overspinning - as long as it doesn't get too overspun, this shetland really does feel pretty nice. the yarn does have some hairs sticking out and some potential itch factor, but it's not unpleasant, and it doesn't have the dish scrubber feeling of some wool yarns. i am interested in swatching it to see how the swatch would feel. ultimately, i'll be using this in a shawl, i think, on bigger needles than the yarn would call for, either in a lacy stitch or plain; think either an evelyn clark type pattern or something plain like citron, lavalette, etc. i may also look up shetland patterns and styles, maybe that would be appropriate. from my imagination now (this is not even an educated opinion) i feel like clark's patterns are a little shetland-y. or maybe the lace pattern from traveling woman? or springtime bandit (although i've made three or four of that last and don't know how soon i need to make another.)
ha. also i am drinking beer although it's hard with a spindle in hand. mighty arrow pale ale from new belgium. a comment was made earlier, to the effect of, "pale ale? pale ale? i wouldn't drink pale ale with someone else's mouth!" oh but my friend, you would if you were me. i like the cuttingness, the sharpness, the lightness and the briskness. it would be a good beer to drink in a friend's back yard in the springtime, throwing the ball for a dog. i am in no way influenced to write the above just because there's a dog on the label, or anything.
cheers.
she's already got a name, and as the goldings call her, she is a real little sweetheart. after swanging around on my big old ursula (my ashford student spindle, at a fighting weight of over 2 and a half ounces, my little faye valentine is as a bumblebee next to a b-52. faye is quick and i sure need to speed up my draw/draft. i have found that yesterday and today, i was able to spin, with diligent attention, some fairly even singles on some shetland i'd brought back from a visit to alaska. playing with a little pouf of it a couple of weeks ago compelled me to order some more shetland.
i combed through etsy listings, as i'm currently lacking a local source (that i know) of shetland. i've gotten merino and BFL from LYS but it seems that finding more variety is going to necessitate trips more northerly in the state or ordering online.
i chose the sheep's company for some beautiful, naturally colored shetland wool - which i say, scared of using the terminology, but i think it might be top? roving? the fibers seem to be going more-or-less the same way, but it doesn't seem nearly as processed as the big commercial crazy dyed merino i've spun and most spinners have at least met. it's not even as "commercial" feeling as the pagewood farms BFL i've spun (8 oz in two different colors). i would expect that the texture difference between the different types of wool would probably also contribute to some of the feeling (although that merino felt like fiber that had been processed within an inch of its life - i know this feeling from my own hair after it has been abused). it's a little oily, but not really greasy and it has a faint oily/sheepy smell.
i am trying to be aware and present and to pay attention while i am spinning, slowing myself to avoid overspinning - as long as it doesn't get too overspun, this shetland really does feel pretty nice. the yarn does have some hairs sticking out and some potential itch factor, but it's not unpleasant, and it doesn't have the dish scrubber feeling of some wool yarns. i am interested in swatching it to see how the swatch would feel. ultimately, i'll be using this in a shawl, i think, on bigger needles than the yarn would call for, either in a lacy stitch or plain; think either an evelyn clark type pattern or something plain like citron, lavalette, etc. i may also look up shetland patterns and styles, maybe that would be appropriate. from my imagination now (this is not even an educated opinion) i feel like clark's patterns are a little shetland-y. or maybe the lace pattern from traveling woman? or springtime bandit (although i've made three or four of that last and don't know how soon i need to make another.)
ha. also i am drinking beer although it's hard with a spindle in hand. mighty arrow pale ale from new belgium. a comment was made earlier, to the effect of, "pale ale? pale ale? i wouldn't drink pale ale with someone else's mouth!" oh but my friend, you would if you were me. i like the cuttingness, the sharpness, the lightness and the briskness. it would be a good beer to drink in a friend's back yard in the springtime, throwing the ball for a dog. i am in no way influenced to write the above just because there's a dog on the label, or anything.
cheers.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
today in spinning
spinning is going, well, spinningly.
I have learned some lessons, or at least made some realizations. They culminated today, and I thought I might record them for posterity.
1) Tension and resting don't do too much to cure overspun yarn. That's going to require a proactive approach and not killing my spindle every time I set it to spin. This may also be why I need (NEED) a different spindle. (Ha.)
2) On the subject of spindles: Fiber ships faster than spindles. The answer to "Is my Golding here yet?" is "NO!". (The Sweetheart and all of her siblings can be found here, by the way. Yes. I am an enabler.
3) However, even though the spindle's not here, getting two pounds of fiber in the mail is like xmas, sweet 16, my 21st birthday and xmas all rolled into one. I can't imagine how I'll feel if I ever start buying fancy fiber if I'm this stoked over some Brown Sheep mill end rovings. Yes. There is already half a pound on the stove, but the purple part of the dye didn't take. The pink and orange did and I think the result is going to be pretty outstanding. Now I want to dye little fiber cupcakes, just to play. That will have to wait until the weekend.
4) Also. Spinning right now needs to be counted like a waltz. Draft, two, three; draft, slide, slide; one, two, three.
5) The cats are not to be trusted either in the fiber room/office, or outside of it while I am spinning. Bad cats. Also, they are very fond of roving/top. I disagree with this fondness.
I have learned some lessons, or at least made some realizations. They culminated today, and I thought I might record them for posterity.
1) Tension and resting don't do too much to cure overspun yarn. That's going to require a proactive approach and not killing my spindle every time I set it to spin. This may also be why I need (NEED) a different spindle. (Ha.)
2) On the subject of spindles: Fiber ships faster than spindles. The answer to "Is my Golding here yet?" is "NO!". (The Sweetheart and all of her siblings can be found here, by the way. Yes. I am an enabler.
3) However, even though the spindle's not here, getting two pounds of fiber in the mail is like xmas, sweet 16, my 21st birthday and xmas all rolled into one. I can't imagine how I'll feel if I ever start buying fancy fiber if I'm this stoked over some Brown Sheep mill end rovings. Yes. There is already half a pound on the stove, but the purple part of the dye didn't take. The pink and orange did and I think the result is going to be pretty outstanding. Now I want to dye little fiber cupcakes, just to play. That will have to wait until the weekend.
4) Also. Spinning right now needs to be counted like a waltz. Draft, two, three; draft, slide, slide; one, two, three.
5) The cats are not to be trusted either in the fiber room/office, or outside of it while I am spinning. Bad cats. Also, they are very fond of roving/top. I disagree with this fondness.
A Brief Sample of Websites I Found to be Helpful in Studying for the GRE
GRE Study Sites That I Found to be Useful:
Number2, despite the hilarious name (I was mentally somewhere between 2 and 12 while I was getting ready for this thing, so forgive the immature giggling)has a section for GRE practice/study.
I think I used the math one for this quite a bit? I think that I used the math for all of them quite a bit. Ha.
I used some of the free practice programs from ETS – this is the company that publishes the GRE.
They offer the PowerPrep software for free, which is similar to (but not the same as) the test. My qualitiative scores on the verbal parts of these were higher than my final score, but my quantitative (that's the math part, right?) final test scores were higher than my practice ones with this program. That was ultimately way ironic. They also offer a writing practice test for $13, called ScoreItNow, I think. It was worth it to me to practice in a way very similar to the test, but my score for the practice was higher than the one I got for the final. But my final testing situation was very different from practice – I would suggest any practice tests that you take, to vary the order. I was pretty sure that the test would begin with the essay, then proceed through the verbal, then the math, but my math and verbal got switched, which freaked me out a little bit.
WTAMU Math Lab
This is West Texas A&M's math lab and it features a pretty good review for the math part of the test.
Number2, despite the hilarious name (I was mentally somewhere between 2 and 12 while I was getting ready for this thing, so forgive the immature giggling)has a section for GRE practice/study.
I think I used the math one for this quite a bit? I think that I used the math for all of them quite a bit. Ha.
I used some of the free practice programs from ETS – this is the company that publishes the GRE.
They offer the PowerPrep software for free, which is similar to (but not the same as) the test. My qualitiative scores on the verbal parts of these were higher than my final score, but my quantitative (that's the math part, right?) final test scores were higher than my practice ones with this program. That was ultimately way ironic. They also offer a writing practice test for $13, called ScoreItNow, I think. It was worth it to me to practice in a way very similar to the test, but my score for the practice was higher than the one I got for the final. But my final testing situation was very different from practice – I would suggest any practice tests that you take, to vary the order. I was pretty sure that the test would begin with the essay, then proceed through the verbal, then the math, but my math and verbal got switched, which freaked me out a little bit.
WTAMU Math Lab
This is West Texas A&M's math lab and it features a pretty good review for the math part of the test.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
in the spin
lovin' that spin i'm in,
that old black magic called love...
i don't know if all this sneaking and spinning is getting me anywhere, but i am certainly getting a lot of practice in right now. i stash stalked some other spinners today and one had her progression listed - she had a metric panttonshitload of fiber, in the droppiest of names in some really sweet colors. i initially tuned out because a lot of the colorways that she'd spun up already, i wasn't as hot on - there are some awesome plums and browns and sour colors and greens in her stash but a lot of tans and blues spun up, and plied up for that matter.
and i found myself being dismissive, like, oh that one doesn't look all that great, and that one is kinda wonky, but i noticed that some of the skeins were just bang-on brilliant.
nailed it as the carpenter would say, just nailed it.
and so i looked and noticed that the skeins indicated this fiberworker's entree into spinning, i don't have a fraction of the fiber she's got, still working on my eye for color and her plies are SWEET. okay fine she's got a wheel and all but still. so i looked for the spun-up skein pictures, a relatively small fraction of easter eggs in this amazing field of names i recognize and some i don't and i start reading the details on the stash entries - amazing spinner has gone and listed most of them with dates or in a sequence. i recognized my very first efforts in hers, and heartened when i saw that the magic really started to happen around skein 7. most of her spinning is plied. i've successfully completed one project of singles spinning, then plying to produce quite possibly a useable skein of yarn, so i'm at this spinner's, say, 3 or 4. i'm getting there, then. just keep spinning.
which will be super-easy once my ombre tones of shetland come in. oh i am very excited about this and have plans of coffee, red wine, low lighting and all weekend in the sanctuary with this yarn. ha. well, best laid plans and all that, so i'll probably sneak off just as much as i can for shots and quickies instead. gonna have to leave the light on.
eta: also i want to do a survey/glossary of spindles. fat chance i'll ever get a chance to mess with all of them, but to have a page with all of the information in one place, and to develop my own learning, may as well. but i'll not start on that tonight.
that old black magic called love...
i don't know if all this sneaking and spinning is getting me anywhere, but i am certainly getting a lot of practice in right now. i stash stalked some other spinners today and one had her progression listed - she had a metric panttonshitload of fiber, in the droppiest of names in some really sweet colors. i initially tuned out because a lot of the colorways that she'd spun up already, i wasn't as hot on - there are some awesome plums and browns and sour colors and greens in her stash but a lot of tans and blues spun up, and plied up for that matter.
and i found myself being dismissive, like, oh that one doesn't look all that great, and that one is kinda wonky, but i noticed that some of the skeins were just bang-on brilliant.
nailed it as the carpenter would say, just nailed it.
and so i looked and noticed that the skeins indicated this fiberworker's entree into spinning, i don't have a fraction of the fiber she's got, still working on my eye for color and her plies are SWEET. okay fine she's got a wheel and all but still. so i looked for the spun-up skein pictures, a relatively small fraction of easter eggs in this amazing field of names i recognize and some i don't and i start reading the details on the stash entries - amazing spinner has gone and listed most of them with dates or in a sequence. i recognized my very first efforts in hers, and heartened when i saw that the magic really started to happen around skein 7. most of her spinning is plied. i've successfully completed one project of singles spinning, then plying to produce quite possibly a useable skein of yarn, so i'm at this spinner's, say, 3 or 4. i'm getting there, then. just keep spinning.
which will be super-easy once my ombre tones of shetland come in. oh i am very excited about this and have plans of coffee, red wine, low lighting and all weekend in the sanctuary with this yarn. ha. well, best laid plans and all that, so i'll probably sneak off just as much as i can for shots and quickies instead. gonna have to leave the light on.
eta: also i want to do a survey/glossary of spindles. fat chance i'll ever get a chance to mess with all of them, but to have a page with all of the information in one place, and to develop my own learning, may as well. but i'll not start on that tonight.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
i have started sneaking off to spin...
the new york times has recently published an article asserting that meditation causes certain changes in the brain.
this is only because scientists and mainstream buddhists don't seem to know handspinning yet.
however. i will choose this inclement weather school closing unforeseen free time to be silly instead of serious about spinning.
when i was in portland, back in the days of couldn't afford shit, but still managed to get respectable quantities of goods both fiber (omg I LOVE YOU YARN GARDEN) and beer (SAME, HENRY WEINHARD AND NEW BELGIUM) (OMG I LOVE THAT NOSTALGIA TIME AND CAPSLOCK). i also accumulated mass quantities of things that are of the same type (mostly fiber, but includes faceted stone beads, like the sunstone that i haven't done anything with yet) but like don't match.
also, i've had the beastie boys in my head, like, well, always, lately, and so. i am in the office with my crappy but functional gifted first spindle with the pencil-sharpnered tip, you and me and all this random crap i bought for felting, we're going to have a go. apparently, in my fibrous daze, i bought stuff that was meant to be spun and it's all different colors. i am going to make something and call it hazel + tilly, after the grandmas in the beastie boys' seminal turn of the millenium hiphoptechno mashup, "intergalactic".
see also: nostalgia.
also: i'm still doing okay on the beer front. I am playing/praying with a bottle of St. Arnold's Christmas Ale. it's got a pretty label; i would send xmas cards if i could get them with the label image on them.
ETA:OMG WTF BBQ?!? tilly and hazel is a no go at this time. negative. those fibers were *not* meant for spinning except for the little local ounce of shetland from the last time i went to alaska. i think i prefer meditative spinning, although it doesn't have to be all sitar music.
this is only because scientists and mainstream buddhists don't seem to know handspinning yet.
however. i will choose this inclement weather school closing unforeseen free time to be silly instead of serious about spinning.
when i was in portland, back in the days of couldn't afford shit, but still managed to get respectable quantities of goods both fiber (omg I LOVE YOU YARN GARDEN) and beer (SAME, HENRY WEINHARD AND NEW BELGIUM) (OMG I LOVE THAT NOSTALGIA TIME AND CAPSLOCK). i also accumulated mass quantities of things that are of the same type (mostly fiber, but includes faceted stone beads, like the sunstone that i haven't done anything with yet) but like don't match.
also, i've had the beastie boys in my head, like, well, always, lately, and so. i am in the office with my crappy but functional gifted first spindle with the pencil-sharpnered tip, you and me and all this random crap i bought for felting, we're going to have a go. apparently, in my fibrous daze, i bought stuff that was meant to be spun and it's all different colors. i am going to make something and call it hazel + tilly, after the grandmas in the beastie boys' seminal turn of the millenium hiphoptechno mashup, "intergalactic".
see also: nostalgia.
also: i'm still doing okay on the beer front. I am playing/praying with a bottle of St. Arnold's Christmas Ale. it's got a pretty label; i would send xmas cards if i could get them with the label image on them.
ETA:OMG WTF BBQ?!? tilly and hazel is a no go at this time. negative. those fibers were *not* meant for spinning except for the little local ounce of shetland from the last time i went to alaska. i think i prefer meditative spinning, although it doesn't have to be all sitar music.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Happy Post Office
RAKs and shipped orders make a happy visit to the post office on an otherwise crappy January Monday afternoon.
The world's a mess and so am I, but I got all kinds of lovely little things in the mail and a big mystery box from family - being able to smile is like a miniature vacation.
The world's a mess and so am I, but I got all kinds of lovely little things in the mail and a big mystery box from family - being able to smile is like a miniature vacation.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
i love this picture of my cat
My boycat is apparently a hipster, taking self-portraits for his next "album cover" or maybe for the back of his chapbook. Silly Hiro.
Monday, January 10, 2011
yeah I'm going to do that...
this may be the year I really go shampoo free and make my own deodorant.
I can hear my mother's anguished shrieking from here. I may not ever be able to tell her what a dirty hippie I am.
I can hear my mother's anguished shrieking from here. I may not ever be able to tell her what a dirty hippie I am.
Friday, January 7, 2011
sometimes i have to knitblog
i can't keep my projects straight - keeping my ravelry straight is a WIP all of its own.
i am working on a 4 paneled shawl in malabrigo that is stockinette and garter or reverse garter for texture. it's hard to take a flattering picture of malabrigo multicolors - they just look better in person.
am still working on that noro stripe scarf in plymouth mushishi wool/silk and cascade 220. it's beautiful but i strongly disagree scarves in
general.
i don't know what's going on with my formatting now. it's all super narrow. is this where my picture is going? is my computer teh haxxord? is there a keylogger on my machine? am i paranoid? yes probably.
anyway, i need to get over my scarf disagreen cause what is in that picture where ever that picture does show up on my post is why. m a d e l i n e t o s h (i have to write it like that because i love it in a tease-y sort of way) pashmina, my first mt acquisition and it's gorgeous. it's got a fairly limited window of really necessary or comfortable wearing around here so i need to get going on that clapotis. damn clapotis, but at least no one else has one that color. i know because ravelry search tells me that no one has done one in any madelinetosh yarn. which i find unbelievable. i guess everyone's using their malabrigo sock for that one.
my mal sock, however, is in use on my EZ 1/2 circle pi shawl camping version. that project is in a bit of a timeout. i spent two hours yesterday knitting distractedly, making mistakes, then making counting mistakes, frogging back two rows, then frogging back four rows, making more counting mistakes and then finally fixing my count and counting mistakes. what the hell.
then there's larch which is way sidelined because for many reasons, not the least of which is that it would be easy to pick back up, so it gets little respect from me.
speaking of little respect, i need to track down those dpns i got yesterday. they were basically forgotten in my omg i got three skeins of alchemy haiku at forty percent off. omg. that, however, is waiting for warmer weather, but not too warm. it's the house finch colorway, and baby is it gold. i am leaning towards a citron for that one, but will no doubt change my mind before i do anything with it.
i'm also brainstorming a vest idea with a seed/moss stitch bottom edge, no seams, worked in one piece bottom up, then split at the armholes, and joined at the shoulders. frog type fasteners down the front. some waist shaping, but main shaping done by color. stephen west's daybreak is a way of doing one of my favorite color striping techniques and i was thinking about how the main color makes vertical lines through the cc at the increases. i could use those vertical solid color lines to create both visual interest and something like princess seaming by slipping the solid color stitch on the alternate color rows. that might make the solid like too short, so i'm wondering if i'd have to pull a chain through on the next pass across with the mc and then k1 through that. which of course demands exploration and then time. not to mention the fact that i've still got a cabled vest on some sticks in the office.
madness. and i still want to dye some yarn for some reason today. actually, i want to dye something. anything. i should go get some stuff for that.
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